We can learn from U.S. system

Despite being expensive and too long, American elections do work

Voters

Brian van der Brug/McClatchy-Tribune

Voters cast their ballots at a Los Angeles pool as swimmers take laps on the day of the U.S. presidential election. While some U.S. states had as high as a 80 per cent turnout, Ontario's turnout in 2011 was a record low 49.2 per cent.

BOSTON - We Canadians watch every four years, engrossed, shaking our heads in wonder at the big money driving American democracy, rolling our eyes over voting irregularities and allegations of suppression.

We love to mock the weird, out-of-touch candidates and their whack-a-doodle pronouncements and wonder why it takes Americans so long to elect a president.

And then we move on, secure in our smug view that we do our democracy better than our neighbours to the south.

But let’s hold that thought for a moment.

Canadians can learn something from the protracted, often messy circus they call a presidential election.

Americans generally do not vote in appreciably greater percentages than Canadians, but they do it under much more trying circumstances and they do it at rates in some areas that shame Canadians, particularly young Canadians.

The early numbers show the turnout this year will be better than the Canadian turnout of 61.1 per cent in our 2011 election.

It now stands here at about 60 per cent, driven down by large drops in Sandy-stricken New York and New Jersey, but that will grow as absentee and provisional ballots are counted.

Voting may be down from 2008, but some regional and state numbers are astounding.

In Nevada, the turnout was 80.5 per cent. Here in Massachusetts, a marquee Senate race helped fuel a 73 per cent turnout.

Turnout in parts of Virginia were anecdotally reported in the 70 to 80 per cent range, one county in Wisconsin clocked in at 87 per cent, and the state hit the 70 per cent level.

Pennsylvania, Iowa (which set a record) and Ohio were also all in the 70 per cent range.

In Ontario, the turnout for the 2011 provincial election was a record low of 49.2 per cent.

In Alberta, 57 per cent turned out for the provincial vote last April (a 20-year high). Only Quebec, with a turnout of more than 70 per cent in September, could approach some of the best state numbers Tuesday.

More troubling is the greater youth involvement in elections.

Although the two countries use different age categories to define “young voters,” the U.S. Centre for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement reported at least 49 per cent of Americans aged 18-29 voted Tuesday, a number that will crack 50 per cent when all ballots are counted.

In Canada in 2011, 38.8 per cent of Canadians aged 18-24 voted, although that is a smaller age sample.

Regardless, there have been a number of get-out-the-vote efforts aimed at young voters in this country and the last three U.S. elections have featured the strongest youth turnout in recent history.

But images of voting lines snaking for blocks, waits of up to six hours, people in Miami chanting “let me vote” and Virginians still waiting to vote even as the national result had become clear, show everything that is inspirational and disgusting about the U.S. electoral system.

The perseverance is laudable, but no developed country should make it so arduous to exercise a franchise.

Barack Obama pledged to “fix’’ that in his acceptance speech, but it should be noted that this country’s leaders pledge to “fix’’ the voting system after every election cycle, yet malfunctioning voting machines, poorly trained workers, intimidation and flat-out fraud still plague voting day.

“The biggest problems occurred in low-income and minority communities,’’ said Matt Pascarella of VideoTheVote.org, a non-partisan organization that seeks to document vote suppression. “These obstacles to voting are a grievous stain on our nation’s reputation as the world’s greatest democracy.’’

After our own problems with voting in 2011, Canadians can no longer pass judgment on problems here.

There are other facets to the U.S. election that should give Canadians pause.

U.S. pollsters are more accurate.

That is a product of bigger budgets that lead to greater intensity and frequency of the polling and allows pollsters to stay in the field later in the campaign. Tuesday was a good night for the number crunchers and the geeks, a bad night for the Republicans who attacked the pollsters and analyzed from “their gut.’’There was more than twice as much polling done in Virginia, for example, in the last week of the campaign than there was in Quebec in the last week of the provincial election, although they have almost identical populations.

And the length of the campaign?

If the Republican war of attrition made Mitt Romney more battle-hardened, it also exposed the GOP for it what it was, a hostage of the Tea Party faction.

If that galvanized Democratic support, thank the primary system.

Yes, an estimated $2.6 billion was spent to deliver a status quo presidential and congressional election.

But that doesn’t mean the system doesn’t work. It just means democracy in these parts is mighty expensive.

Tim Harper is a news services columnist who writes about national affairs.